I knew where the skull was buried. The body, no, but I didn’t need the body. I just needed the skull; the rest might regenerate.
My friend, John, had long ago moved out of the house. I hadn’t been back to the old neighborhood in twenty years. A new family lived there. A multi-level house with brick and green faded siding. In the back of that yard was buried a woman’s head. John said one day a man had knocked on his door. He had a long beard and a bald head. He had a burlap bag and in that bag was a woman’s head. He didn’t reveal that. He never told them anything about the contents of the bag. He said he had a briefcase of money, and he convinced the family that if they let him bury his belongings, he would give them a hundred thousand dollars in two years’ time. He said he would be back to collect and to reward. Now any other family would have refused or called the police, but John’s parents were, let’s just say, stupid as shit, desperate folks. They spent their weekly checks on everything but necessities. Every other month their lights were shut off. They had numerous candles in every room of the house. They lived like bats. I couldn’t understand their mentality. According to my dad, buying ten cent gum was considered too expensive.
The man walked to the back yard, dug a hole, and plopped the bag in the ground. John’s parents really didn’t think much of it. The man warned them, harshly.
“Now you’ll get your money. In the meantime, don’t unbury that bag or you’ll regret it.” The man, casually dressed, nothing spectacular about his appearance, walked out the door, never to be seen again. Five years down the road, John’s family would lose the house, auctioned off to the highest bidder.
John told me and my other friend Mike this story one day in the cafeteria, but John told a lot of stories. He was a cool guy but prone to spouting off a whole lot of horse shit.
“Your parents agreed to this?” I asked.
“Well yeah. I know it’s crazy but that’s a lot of money.”
Mike laughed, “Bullshit.”
“I’m serious dude. Why would I lie about it?”
“How long ago was this.”
“More than a year. I was too scared to say anything.”
“Well,” Mike intervened, “there’s only one thing to do. We got to prove you ain’t full of shit. We got to dig up that bag.”
“No man. He said we would regret it if we dug up that bag. He could be the Mafia or something.”
I liked the idea, especially if it meant exposing one of John’s extravagant tales. Maybe he would stop telling them if we just embarrassed him a little bit. “I like it. Mike’s right. Let’s do this. We’ll spend the night, get some pizza, play some video games, and early in the morning we’ll dig up that bag.”
“Jay, I’m not lying, but if you really want to do this what can it hurt. We’ll dig it up and then put it right back in the hole and rebury it.”
That night we had fun. John’s parents had paid the electric bill so we could watch some rented movies and play some video games. We had walked to the video rental store and on the way back stopped off and got two pizzas. I was the only one anywhere near driving. I had my learner’s permit, but Mike had failed on his first try and John had never even attempted. He was a teenager but acted like a child.
About five in the morning, I started to doze off. My eyes were heavy, and I was ready for sleep. I really had forgotten all about the bag. Mike punched me in the shoulder.
“Come on, let’s go. It’s time.” Mike had a shovel in his hand and John was standing next to him.
We walked out to the backyard. John said that the man had buried the bag near the oak tree.
Mike dropped the point of the shovel to the ground and hopped on it with two feet, pushing it easily into the dirt. He dug until he saw a piece of twine.
“Well, I’ll be damned. There’s something buried alright. Let’s hope it’s some diamonds.”
He dug further out from the twine, not wanting to hit the bag and damage its contents. After some time, we could see that it was indeed a burlap bag. My heart rate began to increase. I thought that maybe it might not be a good idea to lift this bag out of the ground. Mike had exposed enough of the bag to be able to pull it out without ripping it. There was a bulge in the bag. It didn’t look like there were a collection of little things, like diamonds and gold coins, just one big lump. Mike untied the twine and turned the bag upside down. There was a thump. On the ground was a severed head, a woman with blond hair, green eyes, and sharp serrated teeth. The neck was neatly cauterized. She was beautiful and frightening.
“Holy shit! What the fuck!” Mike exclaimed.
She blinked and we ran like hell back into the house.
“Well so much for diamonds,” I said.
“Did she blink? Is that thing somehow alive? We got to put it back in the ground.”
“No John, we don’t. You do. You live here. We don’t.”
“Dude, it was your idea to dig it up. I told you I wasn’t lying. We can’t just leave it there.”
I ran back out the door, tired of hearing the bickering. I took the shovel and pushed the head back into the hole. The head snapped at the end of the shovel as it fell into the hole, eyes staring upward at me, green moist eyes, eyes you would see on a living head attached to a living body, not dead and fading like a corpse. I lost my nerve and threw the burlap bag over the hole. At least the neighbors wouldn’t see it. I ran back into the house.
“Why didn’t you bury it?”
“Fuck you John, I did my part.”
Luckily for us we could procrastinate. Both John’s parents worked on Saturdays, his mom for the department store and his dad cooking for a fast-food joint. I went back home for a while and hung out in my room. Mike had a baseball game that day. He said that we would meet back up that afternoon and fill in the hole and be down with the whole affair.
Did I really want to go back? Hell no, but then again, I didn’t want to let John down. I felt responsible. I fell asleep for a while but when I woke up, I just laid there thinking, eyes closed, half-awake and half-asleep. I envisioned a beautiful demoness with blond hair walking toward me, dressed in white lace, baring her teeth, I hypnotized by her emerald eyes, pliant and ready to be devoured. I owed it to John. We convinced him to dig it up. I was at least going to help him in that regard, but I was convinced that after that I would never go back to his house ever again.
John’s parents weren’t home yet. John was sitting on the front porch as Mike and I approached.
“Did you win?” he asked.
“Hell no, we got blasted. 10-2.”
“Shit you guys suck.” Mike punched me in the shoulder. That was his go-to move.
“You been out here all day.”
“Hell yeah. I just got back from walking through the neighborhood. I’m tired, but I ain’t going to be able to sleep until we got that thing buried.”
We walked downstairs and to the basement. Mike grabbed the shovel from the rack. I opened the back door and stopped. John bumped into me.
“What the hell man?”
I moved out of the doorway and pointed to where the head was. The head was still there but it wasn’t isolated. The neck and chest had grown, her exposed breasts out in the afternoon sun for all to see. Her right arm was tissue and muscle to the elbow, her left arm only bone from the shoulder to her wrist. It was an asymmetrical regeneration, fascinating, nonetheless. Her neck was askew, being that her head was still in the hole. The bag still over her face. She was still an embryo, arms unfunctional and unable to move the burlap blindfold from her gaze. Mike moved toward her. We followed behind. I was curious as to what he was going to do. He took the shovel and moved the bag off of her face. Her face was pushed up against the side of the hole, planted into the dirt. She couldn’t turn her head. Mike walked behind the hole and grabbed her long blonde hair.
“What the fuck man?” I yelled.
“I want to see if she can talk.”
He grabbed a tuft of hair and pulled upward and to the side of the hole. He dropped her head onto the ground. She looked around at everyone and then set her gaze upon me, never looking anywhere else but at me.
“Can you talk? What’s your name? Damn, I think she likes you.”
“She’s dumb as shit. She’s not going to talk. John, what about the shed?” Mike asked.
“Yeah, my dad doesn’t ever use it anymore.”
“Good, help me.” Mike grabbed her by the hair and started dragging her toward the shed. She started squawking like a hawk. “Can you guys help me for Christ’s sake?”
“How? What do we grab? Her tits?” John answered. She never stopped staring at me, even though she was struggling and making unbearable noises. Mike finally got her into the shed.
“What do we do now? I can’t have a torso living in my shed?”
“We chop her damn head off, put it back in that bag, and bury it. And never mention it again.”
“We can’t do that. She’s alive. That would be murder,” I responded.
“Oh shit, Jay is in love. That’s not a human. Nice tits, but have you seen the teeth? You are out of your mind.”
“Ok then Mike, there’s a saw in the basement. Go chop her fucking head off then.” I was getting irritated. I knew it was a monster, but I knew it was something else as well. Maybe it was human at one time, maybe she could be human again.
Before I could say anything else she lunged at Mike and bit him in the neck. She was latched in deep, her chest heaving up and down, as if she was sucking the life force out of his body. Mike yelled in pain.
“Get this bitch off me!” John grabbed her by the hair, and I tried to grab her arm, which was only bone. As I grabbed ahold of her wrist, the bony arm was wrenched from her shoulder, and I was tossed back against the wall of the shed. She finally loosened her grip and John was able to pull her to the ground. Mike was bleeding out fast but was too furious to care. He stomped out of the shed and within a couple of minutes he came back with an axe. He swung it high above his head and down into her shoulder blade, missing her neck and showering us and the shed interior with blood. She went to move again, and John yanked hard on her hair, pulling her head far back, exposing a wide swath of neck. Mike landed a clean shot in the middle of her neck, pushing her head into the floor, and deep into her esophagus. She tried to scream, blood bubbling up and streaming out through the open gash. Mike freed the axe and hammered down again with a heavy blow. That did it. He was a power hitter in baseball, batting fourth, striking out most of the time, but every now and then he would get a hold of one and send it to the clouds. The head was, for all intents and purposes, once again, severed. There was some stubborn flesh and muscle to cut away, but after that the body and head would be torn away permanently.
Mike went and got the burlap bag. He grabbed the head by the hair and lifted it up in the air. For a moment, I thought of Medusa and Perseus.
“Get the bag and open it wide.” I went and grabbed the bag and did as he requested. She ogled me again with her gaze, as if pleading not to be imprisoned, as if I was the only one who had the power to free her. Although it was a pleading look, I also felt like she genuinely liked me. It seemed to be an endearing stare.
Mike dropped her head in, tied the bag, and put it back in its grave, never to be exhumed ever again. We covered up the torso in the shed with a tarp. I helped John clean the shed with some bleach, but Mike was done. He was exhausted from all the physical exertion and loss of blood. John gave him a towel to hold against his neck. Of course, John’s parents didn’t have any bandages or anything.
Mike told his parents that he had been bitten by a dog. I never went back to John’s house, but he would hang out at my house. It wasn’t too long after that affair that John and his family were evicted, and the house went into foreclosure. He moved away and I never talked or seen him again. I guess he took care of the body. I don’t know. I eventually went off to college, got my degree, and then got married. It wasn’t happily ever after. My wife left me after two years. I’ve never really been outgoing. I never dated in high school, and I’ve only had a few relationships. I’ve been really lonely here lately and for the first time in a long time I got to thinking about the woman, or at least her head and her beautiful green eyes. I couldn’t resist wondering how she would look if she was a fully developed human being… and I truly think she took a shine to me.